Episcopal Sodomy: Gay Seminarian Pipeline

From South America to the US

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Church Militant has learned that a clandestine pipeline for homosexual seminarians was established in the 1990s and into the early 2000s where active gay men from Colombia, South America were being secretly funneled to U.S. seminaries.

Multiple seminarians have been in contact with us and want the entire story of the massive, massive crisis of homosexual predation by the clergy — especially in the seminaries — completely exposed.

Church Militant has also confirmed with official sources that various U.S. bishops were aware of this, but turned a blind eye so they could keep their vocation numbers artificially high.

Multiple sources, along with former seminarians — fed up with the cover-ups — led Church Militant to Fr. John Lavers, called in to head up a top-level investigation which then discovered the existence of the seminarian pipeline.

The investigation, when we began in April/May of 2012, revealed that there was a wide network of seminarians which were involved in abnormal behavior and homosexual activity spreading across a number of dioceses in the eastern part of the United States. This also involved a number of dioceses and a number of clergy within those dioceses actively supporting and participating in the homosexual activities that the seminarians were also involved in.

Here's how the pipeline worked.

The secret pipeline involved a so-called "house of formation" established by the archdiocese of Newark in 2003 near the Colombian cities of Medellin and Bogota. Seminarians who had actually been expelled from various Colombian seminaries for homosexual activity were quietly told that they should find their way to the American "discernment" house if they wanted a ticket to gay-friendly seminaries in the United State.

All they had to do was go to the house, pass a sexual test with one or more American priests and then begin the process to receive a visa to the United States for further seminary training.

In the United States, they were distributed throughout a number of U.S. seminaries along the eastern seaboard, and again, an independent investigation has confirmed various bishops came to know of this and did nothing.

Approximately three or four years later, the archdiocese of Newark shut down the Columbian house when the homosexual activity involving American priests and the young Columbians was discovered, as this would cause great embarrassment to the archdiocese if it ever became public.

But that didn't bring an end to the scandalous behavior — it merely shifted it.

Back in the United States, officials from a number of dioceses on the East Coast of the United States, including the diocese of Paterson in New Jersey and the archdiocese of Hartford in Connecticut got in on the action.

They accepted some of these seminarians who had traveled to the United States through the gay pipeline — protected and covered up for by multiple clergy along the way.

The investigation, when we began in April/May of 2012, revealed that there was a wide network of seminarians which were involved in abnormal behavior and homosexual activity spreading across a number of dioceses in the eastern part of the United States.

A good number were then scattered across the country and placed in other seminaries, most of them in various seminaries up and down the East Coast of the United States, near to their sponsoring diocese — some were even eventually ordained. This went on for a number of years.

But none of this South American gay seminarian pipeline story was part of the grand jury report.

What Church Militant has learned is that, prior to going to Hartford in 2003, when he was bishop of Buffalo starting in 1995, Mansell set up an earlier version of the gay recruiting network in Colombia.

Church Militant has obtained this copy of a 1998 confidential internal memo between the rector of the Buffalo seminary, Fr. Joseph Gatto, and Bp. Mansell, where Gatto updates Mansell on the newest crop of nine seminarians from Colombia who had obtained their visas and a tenth who was still in process.

Church Militant spoke exclusively to multiple seminarians who were at Buffalo's Christ the King Seminary at the time, and two of them told us that homosexuality at the seminary under Mansell and Gatto was rampant and that some of the Colombians were actually parcelled out to parish assignments with active homosexual pastors who lavished expensive gifts, including cars, on the young gay Colombians in exchange for sex.

We spoke with two of the men by phone — one of whom didn't want his name used — and they both said they left seminary because they were disgusted with the in-your-face homosexuality that dominated.

Former Colombian seminarian Ricardo J. Perillo spoke with Church Militant concerning a gay relationship in 1999 between Ricardo's classmate from Colombia, Alexander Herrera Silva, and Msgr. Paul Burkard of the diocese of Buffalo to whose parish Alexander was assigned:

Ricardo Perillo: "Alexander was homosexual and he was getting favors quid pro quo from that monsignor in the parish that he was assigned to."

Ricardo explained Msgr. Burkard made a public display of the relationship when calling the seminary:

He called a few times, the seminary, asking for Alexander and he sounded really upset. ... So it looked like, from what I found out, he was jealous that Alexander was going to another parish and 'hanging out' with another male and Monsignor showed or displayed a trace of jealousy. And that's how we found out because it was gossip all over the seminary.

Church Militant reached out for comment to Msgr. Burkard, but so far have yet to receive a response.

According to Ricardo, their vice rector, Fr. Joseph Gatto, was aware of the gay relationship between Alexander and Msgr. Burkard. Ricardo also noted that nearly half of the Colombian seminarians in his class — personally recruited by Gatto for Bp. Mansell — were actively gay.

When Mansell arrived in Hartford in 2003, the Colombian gay seminarian pipeline set up by clergy from the archdiocese of Newark was already up and running.

Former seminarians from the "gay pipeline" have stated that members of clergy in U.S. dioceses promised that they could do anything to make sure that they — the seminarians — would be able to go anywhere, stating that nothing was impossible.

They were then shuffled around by various dioceses, including the diocese of Hartford under Mansell and Paterson, New Jersey under Bp. Arthur Serratelli.

Former seminarians tell Church Militant that the involvement of Mansell and Serratelli in moving around gay seminarians became well known by Church officials as both these bishops had large numbers of seminarians within their dioceses, and they needed to scatter them around in different seminaries so as not to draw too much attention to their exceptionally high number when the Church in the United States was experiencing a massive drop in the numbers of seminarians.

In 2012, this issue of the South American gay pipeline came to a head when various complaints of homosexual activity and sexual abuse became known at Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut — in the diocese of Norwich — after some there reported that a large number of Colombian and U.S. seminarians were involved in regular homosexual activity.

Church Militant has received information from seminarians about what went on at the seminary and how the local clergy from the archdiocese of Hartford, as well as other priests from other dioceses, were involved in homosexual activity as well as sexually abusing young men studying for the priesthood.

Father John Lavers: "The investigation revealed what is essentially a continuum of sexual abuse and homosexuality of priests that have come into the Church over the last many, many years."

And absolutely worth noting — very important — all this was within just the last few years, not decades and decades ago, as many guilty prelates keep trying to insist in order to deflect attention from the massive massive crisis of homosexuality among clergy and bishops lying to cover it up.

According to information from inside the diocese of Norwich, once the administration of Holy Apostles became aware of the immoral activity — again — as recently as 2012, an extensive investigation was launched by the seminary and many seminarians were expelled.

What was perhaps most disturbing, beyond the obvious, was the knowledge of, participation in and cover-up of this by multiple bishops and their staffs.

Father John Lavers: "Well, I can say that the investigation revealed that there were at least six dioceses and we know that, from information that was continuing to come into us from various anonymous sources and confidential informants, that that number of dioceses was to grow."

To be clear, under Bp. Henry Mansell during his time in Buffalo, young Colombian men, some of whom were homosexual, were actively recruited and brought to the United States under false pretenses — potentially violating U.S. immigration laws in the process:

Fr. John Lavers: "If that student or seminarian was dismissed or expelled — not withdrawn, but dismissed or expelled — then, in accordance with 2012 the immigration law of the day, they had two weeks in order to leave the United States. But we also know from the investigation that this did not happen."

Michael Voris: "And so the fact that they are engaged in or at least that possibility is sitting right there that they are engaged in violations of U.S. immigration law."

This potential point of deceiving the U.S. Immigration Department in funneling in gay seminarians to the U.S. and moving them around after they have been expelled from a seminary will not bode well for bishops if the federal government comes calling — especially with daily chatter of RICO violations increasing.

The seminarians we spoke with told us not all Colombians were homosexual who were recruited.

Some were brought to Buffalo to be groomed and converted to a homosexual lifestyle and passed around among various clergy.

Once Mansell arrived in Hartford in 2003, he stepped up his game, so to speak, capitalizing on what had become the gay Colombian pipeline for Newark, which homosexual predator Theodore McCarrick had left as archbishop just three years earlier.

The Holy Apostles investigation team extended its investigation based on the information gathered, and their findings were shared with a number of clergy officials, including to bishops Mansell and Serratelli.

Father John Lavers:

And we know that in many cases that the file, for example, or the dossier presented for an individual would then not basically be seen again in terms of it being covered up or put away. And individuals then allowed to go forward, and we know this because of the actions of both some bishops and senior clergy within the diocese that would be very active in this.

To be very clear, this news is all recent news, not decades ago. It is systemic, not localized.

Multiple bishops and their staff not only know, but actively participated in this.

And yet, in the face of a growing mountain of evidence that this is a nationwide homosexuality in the clergy epidemic, bishop after bishop and cardinal after cardinal continue to further enrage the faithful every day by denying the obvious.

The vast majority of bishops in the United States who have issued statements have all deftly side-stepped and ignored the central issue, what is at the heart of this: the majority presence of homosexual men in the priesthood.

From Newark Cdl. Joseph Tobin — who knew all about McCarrick — saying just today he has never heard about a gay subculture in the Church to Cdl. Blase Cupich of Chicago saying its not a gay thing.

The vast majority of bishops in the United States who have issued statements have all deftly side-stepped and ignored the central issue, what is at the heart of this: the majority presence of homosexual men in the priesthood, stealing the money from the faithful, destroying souls and rotting millions of minds.

It is becoming increasingly clear that almost no bishop in America will either admit, confess or wants to deal with the real issue of homosexuality in the clergy.

Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin and, just today, Bp. Robert Baker of Birmingham, Alabama are so far the only two on record calling a spade a spade and admitting what a huge number of Catholic laity already know, that this is a problem of homosexuality within the ranks of bishops and priests.

This is why going on now 2,000 faithful Catholics — and counting — have committed to going to Baltimore this November for the bishops' annual meeting there to tell the bishops this needs to end now.

At this point, it now appears thousands of faithful Catholics will be filling the streets of Baltimore, praying and begging Heaven to restore the Church in America and exorcise this demon of filth and impurity which has seized hold among the bishops.

We Catholics who love the Church want Her back so that she may once again be a light to the nations instead of the butt of filthy jokes.

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